The Beginning of the Decline
It had started so subtly, as many things do. George Weasley had always been able to count on his twin, Fred, to keep him laughing, to push him forward, to remind him that life was supposed to be fun. Fred was the one who had always taken the lead with their pranks, with their jokes, with everything. George had followed, as he always did, but it was never an act of submission. It was a partnership. Fred was the spark, and George was the fuel. Together, they lit up the world.
But somewhere along the way, that spark had begun to flicker. It started with little things—Fred being slower to jump into a joke, his laughter not as full, as it once was. George had brushed it off at first, attributing it to the endless pressure of running a successful joke shop and the chaos that followed the Battle of Hogwarts. They had a lot of rebuilding to do, and Fred, ever the optimist, had pushed through it. He’d always been the stronger of the two, always bouncing back faster, never letting anything keep him down for long.
But one morning, in their shared flat above the Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes shop, George noticed something that made him pause. Fred was sitting at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, not in his usual state of perpetual energy but with his shoulders slumped forward. His breathing was slightly labored, like he had just finished running a race.
“Oi, Fred,” George called out, pulling a chair out and sitting across from him. “You feeling all right?”
Fred’s eyes, usually so full of mischievous energy, looked tired. He blinked, rubbing his forehead before offering a weak smile. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just a little bit tired, that’s all.”
But George had never been one to miss the subtle signs. Fred had always been a morning person, bounding out of bed ready to start the day with some new idea for a prank or a scheme. Now, he was barely awake, and his words didn’t carry their usual weight of enthusiasm. Something wasn’t right.
“What’s going on?” George pushed, his voice quieter now, trying to keep the concern out of it. He didn’t want to make Fred think he was worried, didn’t want to show that the knot forming in his stomach was a signal that something was wrong.
“I said I’m fine, George,” Fred snapped, but it lacked its usual fire. “Just… tired.”
George didn’t press further that morning, chalking it up to a passing phase, but as the days went by, Fred’s condition only seemed to worsen. His once steady energy levels were becoming increasingly erratic. He would sometimes collapse on the couch, too weak to even bother with jokes, his eyes hollow, as if the life was slowly draining out of him.
It wasn’t just physical weakness. Fred’s sense of humor seemed to falter too. The jokes that once flew effortlessly between them were becoming strained, awkward even. George had caught him staring blankly at a new box of prank products, his mind somewhere far away, before he muttered something about being “not in the mood.” That wasn’t Fred. Fred was always in the mood.
George felt a sinking in his stomach as the weeks passed, and Fred’s condition continued to deteriorate. It was subtle but undeniable. His skin had taken on a sallow tone, his appetite had diminished, and his jokes had become fewer. Still, Fred tried his best to hide it from George, putting on a brave face, forcing laughter even when it wasn’t there. But George could see it—the faint tremble in Fred’s hand as he passed a box of joke candy to a customer, the occasional grimace when he laughed too loudly.
George tried to ignore the gnawing feeling in his chest, the growing suspicion that something serious was happening. He wasn’t about to press Fred for answers. He knew his twin well enough to know that Fred wasn’t going to admit anything was wrong until it was too late. That’s how Fred was, always shielding others from his pain, always making it seem like everything was okay when it really wasn’t.
But George couldn’t shake the fear growing inside him, the terror of losing his twin. He couldn’t bear the thought that Fred, the larger-than-life figure who had always been there for him, might not be there forever. But how could he get Fred to admit something was wrong? How could he fix what he wasn’t even sure was broken?